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Source: Bob T. – AA Anniversary Talk (Excerpt; Date Unknown).mp3 File: bob-t-aa-anniversary-talk-excerpt-date-unknown.mp3 Duration: 00:59:02
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George M. and I am an alcoholic, and I am very grateful to be here tonight, among so many people, and I see a whole gang of them back here in the back. Bob, I told you you was going to have a lot of people here tonight, and I think I steered you in the right direction as to how and where to park in order to get out without being blocked. This man from Mississippi also, whom I met more than ten years ago and heard talk even at the Tri-State in Shreveport or at Canyon Lake in 1957, I believe, for the first time, and I've heard him talk on a few occasions since.
However, as many of you know, I have been, was, in the past seven, eight years, out of commission to some degree, and Bob and I have not contacted each other for about eight years, I guess, or possibly nine, until he drove up out in front of this place earlier in the evening, and he stopped and he asked me where was 515 Aurora Street. And I walked out to the car and I said, hello, Bob, I'm George M., and I'm glad to see you. The place is right here, and when you get ready to come back, park here, and so forth and so forth, and so here he is.
Now, Bob is going, or can, and will, if you permit him, keep you wide awake and sit and alert until daylight in the morning, if you so desire, and you will enjoy every instant that you are sitting here listening to this man talk. His story is one that compares to no other speaker that I have ever heard, and I'm sure we are all going to enjoy it and take home not just one thing, but probably many things that we have not heard before.
Even to myself and to you who have heard him before, I know we are going to hear some more things, and more things will be embedded into our minds than have been in the past. So it is my pleasure to introduce to you my good friend, Mr. Bob T. from Gulfport, Mississippi. Thank you very much, George. Just because I have all these cards here doesn't mean I'm going to talk from now until daylight. I'm very grateful to have the opportunity to speak tonight at your anniversary.
I'm very grateful for just having the chance to do this, and in some respects I would like to vary a little bit what I usually have to say. Though, you know, you can't tell the one story if you start telling another one, and you say, well, he's lying about it now because that wasn't what he said the last time. But I do want to try to start off with a thought that touches my heart very closely because I really think that that's the basic problem that all of us have who are alcoholics.
In 1923, a very important meeting was held at the Edgewater Beach Hotel in Chicago. Attending this meeting were nine of the world's most successful financiers. Those present were the president of the largest independent steel company, the president of the largest utility company, the president of the largest gas company, the greatest wheat speculator, the president of the New York Stock Exchange, a member of the president's cabinet, head of the world's greatest monopoly, and president of the Bank of International Settlements.
[00:05:03]
Now, certainly we must admit that here were gathered a group of the world's most successful men, at least men who had found the secret of making money. Now, 25 years later, let's see where these nine men were. The president of the largest steel company, Charles Schwab, died a bankrupt and lived on borrowed money for five years before he died. The president of the largest utility company, Samuel Insull, died a fugitive from justice and penalized in a foreign land.
The president of the largest gas company, Howard Hopson, is now insane. The greatest wheat speculator, Arthur Curtin, died abroad, insolvent. The president of the New York Stock Exchange, Richard Whitney, was just a few years ago released from Sing Sing Penitentiary. The member of the president's cabinet, Albert Paul, was paroled from prison so he could die at home. The greatest bearer on Wall Street, Jesse Livermore, died a suicide.
The head of the greatest monopoly in the world, Ivor Kruger, died a suicide. The president of the Bank of International Settlements, Leon Fraser, died a suicide. Now all of these men learned well the art of making money, but not one of them learned how to live. So tonight, as I talk along, and what I have to say is that thought is recurrent, how to live. But I have one more thing here that I thought might be well for us to consider.
This is ten ways to assure yourself that A.A. will not work. You know, we have so many of the brothers and the sisters who come in, hoping to God it won't work. And these are ten ways that you can do that. Number one, before the remnants have completely dried out of the cuffs of your sleazy trousers, let me declare that there are several things about this program that you will never be able to buy.
Two, exhibit visibly a bored torrent with the stories told by the people trying to help you, being convinced you're not as bad as they were. Number three, keep reminding these people that A. you never drank in the morning, B. you never drove a car while you were drinking, C. your children never saw you drunk, D. your boss didn't know you drank, and E. your minister had told you you could have two drinks.
So, when asked by the people why you called A.A. in view of the list of disqualifications above, tell them that you merely wanted some questions answered like, A. Am I in the wrong line of work? B. Should I move to Tahiti and start over? C. Am I married to the wrong person? D. Why don't my children like me? E. Can you help me find my car? Number five, as you sit in your ruffled underwear at the kitchen table, sporting a two-day growth of beard, two wild red eyes, a jumping stomach, and exuding fragrance of Montana sheep dip, explain to these A.A.s the intricacies and the fast pace of your social and business life that precludes you from going to the A.A. meeting.
Six, insist on going immediately on a 12-step call with your new A.A. friend to carry the message to a still-suffering alcoholic, preferably a fraud.
[00:10:07]
Seven, ask for confirmations or denials of an article you read in the French Tickler magazine where an A.A. was described as a cover-up for wild drunken sex orgies held on so-called meeting nights, a fanatic worldwide religious revival. Number eight, continue to quarrel with every one of the 12 steps. Pick them to pieces. And nine, keep smacking your head with the club of self-pity, demanding to know A. Why am I an alcoholic?
B. Why can't I drink like other people? C. Why do I have to accept and solve it this way? Ten, after the first few days, make up your mind to run your own show. Don't ask for help. Bull it through and develop your own brand of honesty, integrity, and so forth. You are now a real man and have discovered many interesting things about yourself in relation to drinking. Keep your wife and kids off balance by constant reminders of all that you're giving up for them.
Worry with them about the future and how you're going to get through New Year's Day and Flag Day. Take everybody's inventory and when they're wrong, proper tell them. Stand on your own two feet and shortly you'll end up on your back in the kitchen in your underwear, trying to focus on the phone book to find that damn day A number again. We alcoholics suffer from a threefold illness, whether we want to believe it or not.
We're ill physically, we're ill mentally, and most of all, I believe, we're ill spiritually. So as we talk along tonight, we have to talk about two words and what they may mean to us. We don't know and it's not too much concern what they may mean to someone else. But this illness called alcoholism and this strange individual, you and me who are alcoholics, we don't understand. Many people have tried to define alcoholics in many different ways, but I haven't known of anyone who successfully defined it exactly.
But I did hear a man by the name of Gene B years ago who explained an alcoholic in terms that I could understand perfectly. Now, you take a normal person, and if he went out this door to my left, and each time he went out, somebody was standing there with a baseball bat that knocked him down, he would eventually get the idea that he ought to go out this door over here. But not an alcoholic. He'll still go out this door, and if a man with a baseball bat is not there, he'll wait for him.
We alcoholics start drinking, and nobody that I've ever met in going into 19 years now have I ever found has started out to be an alcoholic. It's a confirmation devoutly not to be wished for. But we start out because we understand that that's the accepted thing to do, just take a few social drinks. But somewhere along the line, we finally find out that we can't just hang the tiger loose. And I believe it was Confucius who said that he who would ride the tiger must learn to dismount.
[00:15:00]
And that's where I got caught, and that's where I think lots of other people got caught, in trying to dismount from the tiger. It's a difficult thing. So we continue to drink, and we become vaguely aware that there's something terribly wrong with us. We don't know just what it is. You have the distaff side of your family at hand, who is asking the eternal question, why, to everything you did, why in the world did you tell Mrs. Jones that terrible joke last night, and you begin to cudgel your brain, and you can't even remember who Mrs. Jones is, what's that, what kind of a story you told her, and so we have to have some defenses to that sort of thing, and we alcoholics have two great defenses, that if you went to a psychiatrist tonight, they'd charge you $64 a word for them, but you can get them here for nothing, they're rationalization and projectionism.
Now by rationalization, I mean this, that there never was a time in my drinking life that I didn't have at least 15 or 20 good reasons, my wife called them excuses, but I said good reasons why I ought to take that drink, and the word projectionism simply meant to put the blame on somebody else except good old Bob, and my wife, being the nearest object at hand, got all the credit and all the blame for all the misery that alcohol ever brought into my life.
So we have to learn something about how to break out of the little cocoon that we have sealed ourselves in, and when I broke out, I found out for myself that it was easier, much easier, for me to act myself into right thinking than it was to think myself into right acting. Remember that, please, because we alcoholics can do more heavy thinking and arrive at zero quicker than any group of people that I know of on the face of the earth.
So we have to learn how to act right, and in the course of time, we can begin to think right. I shoved the line back a little bit further every year, but about eight years before I came into AA, I was down, my wife had called on everybody that she knew to call on, she called upon my law partner, who at that time was a federal judge in our district and who's since passed on, and all he could do was to offer her sympathy, and she had plenty of that, and had had for a long time.
She couldn't get any doctors to come to me, but finally she prevailed upon one doctor, who later became a brother of ours, and he says, well, I'll try to help him one more time, and so he sent out a little box of medicine. I know that none of you have had any experience in anything like that, and so I'll tell you just a little bit about it. There were little red capsules that the profane called red devils, and the doctors called [unclear], and it had on the box that upon retiring to take one, and if in four hours sleep had not been attained, to take one more, but no more after that.
My wife, being the trusting soul that she was at that time, let me keep the whole box, and I retired immediately. And after I took that first one, you alcoholics know how time will pass in 15 minutes, I was ready to take a paralyzed oath that four hours had elapsed, and so I took another, and then another, and another, and then one more, and I wasn't getting any action or reaction out of those things at all.
[00:20:10]
And I conceded that perhaps a half a tumbler of good bourbon whiskey would expedite that situation for me, and so I went in and did just that, and at 2.30 in the morning my wife heard the crash. Now in our dining room, we have a dining room table with four legs like most of them have, and stretchers on the bottom that run to a center post parallel with the floor, but the distance between the bottom of the stretcher and the floor was a little bit less than the distance between my two ears, but my head was hung onto that thing.
And my wife began to jerk and push, and I tried to help, and finally, with a little skin and blood coming through the ride, we got my head out. And by that time, she was pretty disgusted with the proceeding, and she says, Bob, for goodness sake, stand up. I says, well, now, my dear, you will just explain to me which way is up, I'll tell you. And then she grabbed my pajama coat as though I had a bad case of leprosy, and I crawled on my stomach through three rooms to get back to my bed, and when it came by, I nailed it.
She was thoroughly disgusted with the whole proceeding, and finally got in touch with my, she first tried my middle brother, an engineer, Jackson Mississippi, and he said, well, he just goes crazy when he drinks, and he's going to hurt somebody, and I don't want to be the one to get hurt. And then she called my younger brother, who was a judge in Corpus Christi, Texas, and he came over, and with a valour born of ignorance, he plunged in and proceeded to take charge of the situation, and the next thing I knew, I was headed toward one of these institutions.
And I said to him and to my wife, now you listen here, if you send me to one of these places where they've got bars on the windows, and locks on the doors, there will be a day when I get out, and when I do, I'm coming to see both of you. And they said, no, now you've just got the wrong idea about this thing entirely. We're going to send you to a place where you can come and go just as free as you want to, and I said, well, I just don't believe it.
So they got the old doctor, whom I supported for the next eight years, on the telephone, and he said, yes, my boy, you come up here and we'll take care of you, and you can come and go just as free as a bird. And when I got there, I found out he was telling me the truth. I could come and go just as free as a bird if I was willing to travel with no more clothes on than a bird. I was so filled with humiliation and shame over the disgrace that I felt I had brought upon my wife and my two daughters, all three of whom were very lovely, that I made a firm resolution I would never take another drink as long as I lived.
And so for three days and three nights, I lay on the little white bed and I shakered and shivered and sweat as only an alcoholic can, and I refused to take a drink to taper off on, or any form of sedation. Of course, I didn't know as much about whiskey then as I do now, or I'd never made that mistake. And then on the third night, I went into delirium tremens, and for three more days and nights, they fought hard to pull me through.
And it wouldn't serve any useful purpose, I don't believe, tonight, to regale you with what you see when you're in D.T., but it's like the old country boy said, you ain't been there, you ain't seen nothing yet. He knew just exactly what he was talking about. To be in that never-never land where you are half sane and half insane, and you don't know which time is which, and to see things constantly and forever in motion, is just an agony that the human mind cannot long endure.
But they pulled me through, and I woke up, and I said, the man in the next room has had a terrible time for the last three days and nights.
[00:25:13]
You all came back and you eluded him, didn't you? I said, Mr. T., that room has not been occupied in three weeks. When I found out all the different things that are supposed to have happened in those three days and three nights, it scared me bad enough that I decided to linger and to take everything that that institution had to offer, and they had plenty to offer if you had a little cash money.
And so I took the works, and I finally wound up with the halocene treatment, and if any of you have not had that, that is just a mild way of learning how to walk on walls and ceilings with no effort at all. I stayed there a month, and then they were ready to discharge me as cured. The doctor said if I had five bucks more, he'd give me a diploma that said I was cured. But I took his word for it. And I repaired back to Gulfport.
I gathered up the very badly scattered reins of my law practice. They got to meeting me at the table with them again at home, and the dogs got to where they'd quit barking at me when I came in at night. And I began to think that life was awful rosy, and it went along that way for about six months. And then I got to thinking about my constitutional rights. I had two brothers, and they took a drink any time they wanted to, and I didn't see why I couldn't take a couple of drinks, especially if I drank like a gentleman, however that is.
And so I took me just two little old drinks, and in 24 hours they had me back in that same institution, tied to a bed. And then back and forth and back and forth I went until I became a sanitarium commuter. And so finally I wore out my welcome and my pocketbook at that institution. And it seemed that the welcome expired coincidentally with the pocketbook given out. Then my wife decided that perhaps I needed a change of scenery, so we shifted to Foundation Hospital here in New Orleans.
And of course, most of you know, Foundation Hospital cares no more about a drunk than any other hospital does. But two of the five men who founded Ochsner Clinic were old classmates of mine at the University of Mississippi. So with a little finagling, I got in under a diagnosis of incipient diabetes, but just as drunk as the Lord. Now one [unclear], as fine as many of them are, one [unclear] I think is enough in any one person's life.
But my wife decided I needed four. And there I was laying on the little white bed, shaking and shivering and sweating all at the same time as only an alcoholic can. And those four [unclear] men came in and looked down at me like a group of scientists looking at an insect under a microscope. And said, what do you propose to do about your problem? I said, problem? I don't exactly understand you. I don't really have diabetes, this is just the way I got in here.
And the only problem I've got is to get sober enough to try a lawsuit in federal court in Biloxi next Thursday. Now if you can solve that one, you've got my problem solved. And right on the heels, there were a whole four of them, and walked out in the hall to my anxious and tearful wife, who was waiting with her buddy for the jury. And they said, we're awfully sorry, but he doesn't have the proper attitude.
All we can foresee for you is a continuous round of these institutions until finally he'll develop a wet brain, and then you can put him in an insane asylum and go home and rest, and know where he is for a change. Now up until that time, I had sworn off as many times as any man under the sound of my voice. And the strange thing was that my wife had believed it every single time that this was it, until those doctors talked to her.
And then all the hope went out of her heart. And the next time that I got drunk, which wasn't too long off, the next morning when I had a hangover, my head felt so big that I could have reached out and scratched it with a crowbar,
[00:30:04]
she came in to sit down and talk things over. I don't know whether any of you gentlemen have ever been confronted with that situation or not, but it seemed to me that when you're about to die for one more slug of whiskey, they want to sit down and talk over the facts of life. She says, well, I've talked it over with the children, and we don't believe that you're going to ever stop drinking. You're going to drink until you die, and whether you believe it or not, we don't want to be here to see that.
And so we're going to leave, and we're going to go outside of Gulfport to get a lawyer to represent us, to get a fair division of what little bits left. I said, well, I'm sorry that you feel that way, but I can't blame you, and I won't stand in your way. But you won't have to go outside of Gulfport to get a lawyer to represent you. I'll represent you, and I'll do more for you and the children than any lawyer could ever do, and more than any court would ever require of me.
If you will have one of the girls to come out from the office, I will dictate and execute an estimate by which I will give you and the children everything in the world I possess except one suit of clothes, and I'll leave. And she stood there literally aghast, and she said, Bob, you just can't mean that, that you would give the children and me everything you have, but you won't turn loose a bottle of whiskey.
I said, I can't turn loose a bottle of whiskey. And I think then my wife realized how terribly ill I was, because like so many fine women in that age, she stuck and she stuck all the way. In May of 49, that year, the lawyers in my state conferred upon me the highest office and now power to give. I was elected president of the Mississippi State Bar, and one of my sober interludes. And by all the rules of the game, that ought to have been enough to keep me sober a greater part of my tenure in office, but I was drunk and left since two weeks' time.
And things began to happen to me. My drunks became more frequent. My suffering was so much greater, and the recovery period was so much longer. But I just couldn't believe that alcohol had anything to do with my problem. There were just too many people monkeying with my life, I thought, and I resented it very much. The man who became my sponsor wanted to talk to me, and I all but threw him out of a four-story window. And he said, very well, Bob, I will not mention your drinking problem again, but you remember that if ever you want to do anything about it, you call me and day or night I'll try to come.
And I smiled and thought, well, that was a very noble thought, and promptly put it out of my mind. And then my answer to my whole drinking problem appeared right under my nose, and I felt a little stupid to be honest with you that I hadn't seen it a whole lot earlier. Now, all in all, what I had to do to stop my drinking problem was to find out which one of these drinks was getting me drunk and quit on the preceding drink. Of course, I was hoping it was going to be about the 16th or 17th.
But if the 6th or 7th, I was going to make the supreme sacrifice. So nothing to do but go out and find out. And so I loaded up my foxhound, some old charter whiskey, some coffee and sandwiches, and fared forth for the noble experiment. Now, I don't know whether any of you gentlemen will ever drink again. I hope not. But if you must, let me recommend the pack of foxhounds to you for drinking companions.
They will go with you anywhere you want to go. They'll stay with you as long as you want to stay. They will not drink any of your whiskey, and they will not criticize your conduct. And so I took them, and they did their part of the job well. And in due course, I passed out. I had long since provided myself with an automobile that had a bed in it, because I was afraid that passing out on the cold, hard ground, I might catch pneumonia. And I didn't want that to happen.
[00:35:14]
Next morning, I came to that one lousy hound. He'd quit during the night, and the rest of them were in full cry. And with that kind of a situation, I did what any good foxhunter would do. I reached over for another drink, and I found out there was just about that much left in my bottle. And I put that down, and I repaired back about two and a half miles to a little restaurant on top of the hill there at Sochi. And I got some more old charter whiskey, and I had him to fix me up some breakfast. And as I'd drunk about a half a tumbler of that whiskey, I realized that here I was about as drunk as I used to be.
And I came out here for only one purpose, and that was to find out which one of these drinks got me drunk. And I declare I can't remember. Of course, I know tonight that it was the first one. And I reached over and got the telephone, and I called the man who'd come up there, Charlie. And I said, Charlie, if this AA business means what you say it means, you come and get me, because I don't think I can make it home today.
He said, well, Bob, I can't possibly get there under two hours. But if you can hold on that long, I'll be there for sure. Where are you? I said, I'm just across the big Biloxi River bridge there on the advanced school road where you and I used to bird hunt. And you'll find me there piled up with the hounds. And that happened to be a little more prophetic than I intended for it to be. They say that they pulled four hounds off before they got down to me. And then they took me home and announced the joyful news to my wife that Bob is going to join AA and we're going to sober him up.
And she said, well, gentlemen, you have my unqualified support and cooperation. There are plenty of beds here, plenty of food in the refrigerator, and plenty of coffee. You take him. And I'm going to my aunt. But when the miracle has come to pass, won't you please call me that I also may come and see? And the second day, not having gotten the word, she came over and there I was drunker than when we started.
She said, well, I tried to tell you, gentlemen, that he's one of these paraldehyde babies and he has been sobered up in hospitals for so long that he has become thoroughly institutionalized. And they said, well, we'll take him back for you. She said, no, you won't have to do that. He knows that I can take a pint of Old Taylor and lead him to the very gates of hell without a struggle, and I'll take him by myself. And she did. And she was highly embarrassed, you know, she'd spent quite a number of years hauling me around in the back seat with a bottle under there.
And so she got up to Hattiesburg. She said, I wish you'd please get down where nobody can see you. She said, we're going to pass Mississippi Southern. It was not called that, it was called the Normal, I believe, at that time. And she said, some of Barbara's friends are going to school up here and they'd be bound to see you. And I said, well, I'm drunk and you're sober and you're driving, but if you're passing Mississippi State Normal, you're not going to ever make it to Meridian. That way you'll have to go by Jackson.
And she said, why, am I on the wrong road? I said, you set me off. You missed the turn way back yonder. Well, how do I get back? I said, well, if you'll permit your drunken husband to direct you, I'll get you back on the right track. And I said, now when you get down there at the intersection of Pine Street and this street that we're on, turn to the left. She said, all right, you get down. And so I got down there and wrapped my feet back up and I thought we were passing Froggy Kahn's Electric Place. And I said, you missed the turn again.
She said, if you'll just permit me once more, you turn right here now at the hotel and go down to the Hotel Hattiesburg and then turn back to the right and please stay on that road. It has 1-1 on it and you can make it. And she did. And we went in and the old doctor, who had let me write my ticket to sobriety any way I wanted to as long as I had the money to pay for it, looked over his big fat tummy and his glasses and said, big boy, how do you want it this time?
[00:40:11]
I said, well, doctor, I've had just about enough. I said, I've lost nearly all my law practice. My wife and children are going to leave me. I've got no more friends. But more than that, I've lost my own self-respect. And I'm going to try this thing called Alcoholics Anonymous. I don't know what it is, but I've tried everything else and this is my last port of call. I want you to put me under paraldehyde until I'm sober and clear in my head and then let me go back.
So he did. We went in on Monday and my wife stayed with me and Wednesday about 11 o'clock we headed back to Gulfport. My head was clear, but I was awfully nervous and shaky. And the next night was AA night. And as we got closer to that night, I became a little more nervous. I felt like that probably I'd overspoken myself a little bit and I wanted to back out. And my wife, Charlie, said, no, you promised and you're going. Well, up until that time, I did not know where AA met in Gulfport. I hadn't been interested in finding out, even though I'd fallen over AA literature on the way to the bathroom for two years.
But I still didn't want to know anything about it. But as we started up the steps, I recognized it as a former funeral home. I thought, well, how exceedingly appropriate this is. I walked up the steps and I thought, well, this is the last step that I'll ever take down the road to degradation in Gulfport, Mississippi. But I'm dying and I've got to go. And I went in and I took a seat on the back row, in the very back seat, and I held myself like this to keep my hands from flying off into outer space. I was shaking so badly.
And two men talked that night. The first one talked about his two boys. That the bartender in Bay St. Louis would call up and say, for goodness sake, come here and get the old man out. He's running my business. And when you're enough drunkard to run the business of a saloon in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, you are some drunkard. And I began to listen with increased respect. And the next man talked, and lots of you know him.
And he had a daughter named Patsy and she wanted to have a party. And her mother told her that she may do so. She went out to invite her little friends and they ran home for permission and came back dragging their heels. And they said, Patsy, we're sorry, but our mother says your father is a drunkard and we can't come into your home. And it nearly broke that child's heart. And I could understand that well because I had seen my own two girls lock themselves in each other's arms and cry themselves to sleep more than one night because their father was drunk. And I, like the drunken, stupid fool that I was, could only suffer the pangs of bitter remorse. Thank you very much.
And to wonder if it wouldn't be better for me to take myself out of this veil of tears. And I'm not prepared to argue whether I would have done that or not tonight. But I had made up my mind that when the day came that the outgo exceeded the income, that was the last decent thing left for me to do. And I tell you tonight that I think there's many a fine man and woman who lay forever still in death by their own hands who believe that it was the last decent thing left to do.
And as they talked on, there came a glimmer of hope that there might be a chance for a guy like me. And I went home, and I don't think I slept any that night, and my whole sordid life passed before my eyes. in kaleidoscopic review, and I made a resolution That Night, That I Was Going to Give Alcoholics Anonymous A Fair Shake, And I Have Given It
[00:45:08]
A Fair Shake, And It's Paid Me Off There Wondrously in Dividends, It's Been A Long Time Since I've Talked About My Two Girls, But I Would Like to Take a Few Minutes of Your Time. I Have Two Daughters, The Older One, Natalie, And The Younger, Barbara. Natalie Was at the University of Mississippi in the Last Three Years of My Terrible Drinking. Barbara was at home in the high school. Now, she'll never forget that one day when I was shaking it out, she was at home.
She said, Daddy Man, all my little friends in my group have some way of knowing that they are going to get a college education. Sue's folks have a policy, Nanette's folks have set aside some money, and each one she told me about. But it says, when you die, not if you die, but when you die, what's going to become of me? And then when I got sober that time, which was not the last time I got drunk by a long shot, I went to the bank and I took out some securities and I put them in an envelope and I marked down there, for Barbara's education.
Because I didn't know how she would have gotten it otherwise, if I hadn't been able to have done it at that time. She would not have been able to at the end of the road, because I didn't have it then. So when I came into AA, Natalie came down to the group and she laughed and talked with all of them. And she was so happy that her father was sober, but Barbara would just look at me with an unwavering stare.
She had a wall there. And the weeks went into months, and the months went into years. And I told some of them, I said, you keep talking around here about peace of mind and serenity of soul, where do you get it? I am willing and have done everything that I know how to do to atone for the hate that I have caused my wife and my two children. But I cannot break down the wall between me and my younger daughter.
And all that they could say was, Bob, just hold on. And in God's own good time, all things come to pass. And I didn't know God, and I couldn't at that time believe in God. But I kept trying, and I kept holding on. And after I had been in 18 months, Barbara was home on a weekend, and on Sunday was going back to Oxford, to Ole Miss. And Charlie, my sponsor, and I were going to drive up to Tupelo where I was to speak on Sunday afternoon, a meeting at 3 o'clock.
And Barbara drove up with us and was going to catch the bus on over to Oxford, not a very long distance. There was nothing in the world that I wanted more than for her to come and hear me talk, in the perhaps vain hope that she might understand that all of it wasn't entirely my own fault. But I would have died before I had exercised any parental pressure to make her come. So I said, baby, you take the keys to the car, you've got some friends here, and you ride around and leave the keys at the bus station, and I'll pick them up.
And then there was an afterthought. I said, but now if you would like to come to the meeting, you are, of course, most welcome. I talked in the schoolhouse, Tupelo High, that Sunday afternoon. And a young lady from Greenwood, Mississippi, preceded me on the program, and about 3.20, as I rose to talk, I saw my daughter come in to the auditorium and take her seat on the very back row. And you can bet that I poured out my heart in that talk that afternoon, and she was gone before I had a chance to see her.
[00:50:03]
But in about three days, I received a letter from her, that as poor as I am tonight, I wouldn't take a million dollars for, when she told me that for the first time in her life, she understood. She understood that all the misery and the shame and the sorrow that had come into our home from alcohol was not all my making, and that she forgave, and she forgave [unclear]. I think that my drinking profoundly affected the lives of both my girls.
Natalie, when she graduated from Ole Miss, she went to Northwestern and enrolled in social work there, fell in love with a young minister and married him. But she has really and truly given her life to trying to help someone else, though she's a mother of three children. And I say with the utmost reverence tonight that she is the most spiritually minded woman, not accepting my wife or my mother, that I have ever known in my life.
When the younger girl, who couldn't understand, finished at the University of Mississippi, she got a scholarship to Yale University in the Divinity School, and with my help and that scholarship, she graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity degree. And she had gone into YWCA work and is now Regional Director for the Southwestern part of the United States. The folks are dedicated to trying to help someone else.
So I started out, and the first thing I learned in AA was the beauty of the 24-hour program. I learned that yesterday, with all of its failures, its failure, its despair, and its bitter remorse, it is gone, and it's gone forever, and neither you nor I nor any other living person can call back one single fleeting moment. It's gone forever, and yet lots of us keep trying to live in yesterday, and tomorrow is yet unborn.
But the day is here, the ever-glorious present is here for you and me to take and to shape into something fine and beautiful, or to throw away and make it just another yesterday. And the choice lies entirely with you and me. A little verse from the Sanskrit very beautifully expresses that thought, I believe, and it says, look to this day, for it is life, the very light of life, for yesterday is already a dream, and tomorrow is only a vision.
But a day well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope. So look well to this day. And then I started. I did not believe in anything, not atheistic, just agnostic when I came into Alcoholics Anonymous. But every philosophy of note in the world I had pretty well at my fingertips. And then I decided that there must be a mental catharsis in my life, and whatever I had in the past that was not right, to throw it away.
And I threw it all away, except three philosophies that to me made an acceptable basis upon which I might build my life. One of those was by a Greek, one was by a Roman, and one was by a Jew. The old Greek Socrates went about inquiring into the hearts of men and women in order that he might understand them and help them understand themselves. And all of his philosophy to me can be expressed in two ways, to know thyself.
And the old Roman, Marcus Aurelius, an old man deeply steeped in the old Stoic philosophy, who taught moderation and self-control in all your dealings with mankind. And all of his philosophies to me he could express in two ways, control thyself. And the third, the Jew, was Jesus of Nazareth, who came upon this earth and who taught men and women the true meaning of self-denial.
[00:55:10]
That in self-abnegation might we find true humility. And his teaching, to me at least, is expressed in two words, deny thyself. And when you have those three, to know thyself, control thyself, and deny thyself, what more or what less do you have in the twelve steps in Alcoholics Anonymous? And because I wanted something. And I started with a star out there because I knew, as a poet said, that man's reach must forever exceed his grasp.
Else what is heaven for? And I thought God was out there somewhere. And I could not understand the word prayer or what it meant. But I had to learn because I did not want to perish. And I searched for God and instead of him being out yonder somewhere, he's in my heart just as he is in yours if you are willing to search for him. And then I learned something about the beauty of prayer. I found out that all life is a asking, a lifting up of thy hand.
We come into this world and we are weak. We become weary and we become heavy laden. And we do not know. But we humbly, pitifully sometimes reach out to something higher and better than we are. Because every breath that you and I take, whether you believe it or not, is an unconscious prayer that you may have the next breath. And so I began to learn in a faltering, stumbling way. And I failed a thousand times in what I am reaching for.
But so far I have never lost sight of the goal. I know that the mountain has only one apex. But there may be a dozen or a hundred roads in the valley that can lead to one place. And it matters not how you get there. The important point is that you do. And as I began to wake, I realized that I owe an undying obligation to this thing called Alcoholics Anonymous. I learned that gratitude is the very lifeblood of Alcoholics Anonymous.
I found out that when I got ready to pay back the men and women who had helped me, they said, no, you can't give us that back. You have to give it away to somebody else who suffers, like you and I. And the years have rolled along. And I don't take credit for any success at all because of [unclear]. [Recording ends.]